Headlining the Easter Festivities @ the Bluff Yacht Club on Saturday 30 March was Durban’s dance Rock Electronica band Rise. It was a surprise to discover the Bluff Yacht Club as an idyllic oasis nestled amongst the core of Durban’s heavy pantechnicons and crate carrying trucks to and from the cargo holds of freight ships. The predicted rain backed off and the evening turned out to be a no-wind perfect out-door late summer event!

Opening the set was acoustic guitarist Tony Liddel. Tony has an ease of presence and good command of his cover material. A Crowded House and U2 fan, he soon had the audience relaxed and singing along! It would be wondrous to catch him singing his own material.

The last time I saw Rise perform was at Origin about two years ago at the launch of “Water on Canvas” when the line-up consisted of Martin McHale (DJ, programming), Kerry Wood (lead singer) and Colin Peddie (guitars, backing vocals). They have since notched up huge successes playing massive outdoor events and festivals. However, Martin (ex 330) has left the band and has turned his energies into managing the direction of Origin Nightclub. Filling this huge and difficult gap with aplomb is Donna Peddie (keyboards, backing vocals, percussion (including drum pad) and Dan Wilson (bass). Dan was absent from this Bluff gig as he was at Splashy supporting featured guest artist, Ant Cawthorn-Blazeby.

Rise has progressed to become the premier dance Electronica band of Durban…if not SA….and have rocketed their way into the ever present with their growing innovation, their layered musical constructions that overlap and extend the depth of the aural experience taking the discerning listener into an exciting multi-dimensional territory. Delving into this most important yet largely neglected base (within the average S.A. band) has had a profound effect on Rise’s confidence. With perfect vocal pitch and texture Kerry has thus been freed to spread her wings more broadly, allowing her voice to play with the instruments and richness presented, all of which decisively matches her gift at every level. Added to this, Kerry has a performance energy of unpretentious earthiness and drive and she is exuberance personified. At this gig she had the audience begging for more…and more…and more….

Colin’s guitar work startles! Taking the jangly bits of the Cure influences and mixing it with the driving rhythms of the best of New Order he has found a sound unique to Rise. This live version of ‘All We Have Is Now’ was electrifying! In the highly competitive world music scenario this transformation is no mean feat and it would be interesting to see if this groundbreaking work becomes the well earned stepping stone towards an international stage.

Of deep import too have been the subtle yet compulsive melodies of Donna’s discoveries, and her percussive range wings a relationship within the rhythms that are inventive and fresh. She is quiet and unassuming yet displays great strength and focus.

The expansive, inclusive lyrics (“Be The Change” still seems largely under-rated in my humble opinion!) gives body to their work enabling the band to find an important niche in the current politico/social context. “Pop Tart” has been cleverly contextualised to deliver a decisive blow to the shallow meanderings of the corporate music scene by surrendering completely with the pay-off line: ”I believe all the lies…” and deserves to be their next big hit!

Rise is rock solid! They have transcended their respective influences and are creating a unique contribution to the South African music scene.

I could not agree more with a fan statement on Reverbnation: “There are no borders in music when looking for beauty. Feel the beauty of music forever.” Respect and support from I&SON.

Buy their album: “Water on Canvass!” Support their live performances! You will be uplifted and energised!

We are the soul of the bomb, this is the music that explains how it soars, these are the seconds before release. This is the coldest sensual. The prettiest brutal.

If you were a man. Watching it fall from the pale sky. This would be the intake of your breath, slowed down, slowed down in a vain attempt to straighten out those insane jumbled thoughts, those terminal thoughts.

And if you survive, this is now your music too.

Scene 2.

the seconds before. The seconds after. Ghosts inherit the landscape. The panic, the crowd frenzy, the voyeuristic vipers of TV land are silent. And what price this calm?

Scene 3.

switch focus now.

The soul

the journey into heaven, hell or where exactly? Does it really matter? But oh it is scary, dangerous, so now we know, we can still be frightened, still be thrilled, the tension is unbearable, but orgasmic. We do not want this imploding to end. Forget the hush, bring the noise.

Scene 4.

and in the electro darkness, the deep green deep, the murk, sparks slink out timid, search for mother, search for lover. Rebirth almost happens, sighs, fades, then almost happens again. The composer’s compassion interferes, flickers into the fluid. Hope can be such an ambiguous thing.

Battle synths of the pop republic! Marching along to a Joy Division beat the pure vocals bewitch and beguile, the light sitting strangely comfortably on top of what is a very nihilistic piece. This is ‘I’d Rather Die’ a song that is full of nervous tension, hurtling sweetly towards a glorious panic attack.

It is this keen sense of the insecurity hiding behind our chaotic lives that elevate these songs, this band, above the massive flow of the Ordinary boys and girls that populate the indie airwaves these days.

Succubus Love starts out with a 90s house glee, morphs into a new wave rock thing before settling down into a modern cautionary tale, encouraging the kind of abandoned jerky dance that the truly cool or the truly crazy get up to in those way too bright clubs existing on the far side of midnight.

We come now to the track that made into the 2010 nbt ‘best of’ list. ‘The Key’ is brutal beautiful a disturbance in the force, again playing the glow against the grime, the innocent against the sordid. Wicked with relish, oh yes.

19 Mirrors get it right, they dare to mix Morodor style electro over incandescent Blondie meets Metal, the type of song that 14 year old girls take to their soul while waiting for their very first heartbreak, the type of song, those older never wiser deviants bounce along to on their way to the next adventure.

Each of these 6 tracks have the potential that the late lamented Long Blondes showed the world, each track is a hit, a single, a chart-topper, in outer space and down here on earth, where this music makes the mundane more bearable, makes the day shorter and the night more alive.

A whole bunch of great music to give my thoughts on today (its going to take two blogs i think) so without messing around lets just get right to it.

First up is the new single Summer by Elika, from the upcoming ‘Snuggle Bunnies‘

This is the summer of static, the hope within the thunder storm, this is a summer indoors under the shifting club lights. The summer of beauty within the chaos a dreamy collision ‘tween 60s harmony pop, and the frantic longing of the shoe-gaze bubblegum. This song proves that gentle need not be insipid, that loving need not be bland. A song for your soon to be lover, but here is the twist, it is as much a song about leaving, losing, as it is about giving, accepting. The sadness in the crush, the absolute thrill of the now.

This is the soundtrack to watching the people move in slow motion, standing on the outside looking in at the ordinary day as it floats past, the drama of the seemingly typical, the zoom in, the noticing of every small movement, every indrawn breath, every controlled bit of anger or delight.

It is the detached view of the human fever, how the normal becomes sci-fi. In this music as we watch and we listen, all becomes movie, all becomes epic. Put these songs on your player, go to your mall or city centre, press play and watch the world.

Leave the safety behind, there is danger in this sweet discovery. This is the music the wineglass hears as it shatter suicides against the cold-hearted floor. Soundtrack the sparkle from a knife as it glides through space, here is the eternity of the journey, the anticipation of the contact, the thud to come.

This magic is not in the dense or the obvious, the self made terror of the darkness, rather this is about the bang of the bright, the calm in the cold. It is music that manages to be both serene and complicated, ambient with shiny hooks.

Imagine if you will, an intimate adventure, where we try to capture the electronic soul from the ghost of a disco dancer. The ambiguous tale of the doomed and the sensual, told with a songwriter’s detachment, and a sound creator’s charm.

What is kinda thrilling about this collection is the way even languid slinky Soul, is seductively corrupted by an Indie Kid with a love of noise and movement, and rock song hooks that prowl the spaces. And for once, the use of production tricks on the vocal add to the suspense, even the humanity in the songs, somehow the technician reveals a heart.

The Track OCD is a playful ambient miniature, Coldcut meets Lynch back at his place, for drinks and a sway around the statues. Like a lot here it hints at the hedonistic, the full on rave ruckus, but prefers the instability of the outsider.Elsewhere it’s pretty cool hearing an American take on the challenge of the Brit dance indie bands such as Bloc Party and get it totally right, this is indeed the Future Frolic.

Kele hire this guy for some remix work right now.

Metaform even finds a place for giddy theatrics crafting a piece in, ‘’It’s Gotta Be’’ that is all camp Soft Cell, totally free of the retro 80s prison though, with slivers of Flying Lotus and other such innovators.

And in, ‘’Introversion’’ there is even a droll take on the sort of Instrumental dream pop that the Love Unlimited Orchestra would attempt, The Isley Brothers 3007. Smooth but not smooth, it goes down a treat.

This is not for the purists (of any genre) but then again what fun cool music really is? And will make as many enemies as life long fans.

Set the controls for mirror ball and strobe light, where the dancers are mysterious and the shadows skitter shatter, conceal and deceptively reveal. This is nightclub music with a dark pulsing heart, and a pop grin, it is alien rock Guitar shot out at girls with fizzy drinks and sly sweet smiles. It is post new romantic, nostalgic new wave twisted modern.

Waste The Right combines that ‘dance with sadness’ thrill, and incorporates the militaristic almost nihilistic grooves of Nitzer Ebb (a cover of Hear Me Say) though adding an ironic funk to the proceedings.

Build It Down (released the same year as WTR) now has a detached sensuality to it, the guitar is slinkyFluid, it sneaks and crawls all over the melodies, and Miss K adds a chilled eroticism to the mix, making the songs of fright and fear and longing ambiguously seductive. Their cover of the Kinks ‘All Day and All Of The Night’ skews the sentiment in much the same sardonic way Wall Of Voodoo once did when they covered Ring Of Fire.

Dr Night is the artist virtually alone, and in Dying To Save he delivers his first warped epic, skittish samples drift over a trancelike journey, the tense guitar and sleepy vocals recall both travel and sleep merged into a beautiful blur.

This song is re-imagined on the next EP, Last Planet, and there is now a power to the artist’s writing and production, he is comfortable there in his strange space and it shows, the ghost of Frank Tovey still haunts and pursues the songs souls, but these now are Mach Fox creations, set in the here and now, speeding calmly forward into the Night’s adventures.

Nu Dead Pretty is exuberant, electro warrior cool, wicked, the balance of raw and dirty balanced just right with the machine cruel, we have listened to the star being born slowly, delightful, with screams and shudders and glorious shrieks, with the composer adding his own remote narration, keeping us dancing, enticing us to think and perhaps even surrender.

These EPs are only the tip of the building that Mach Fox has built, is STILL building, go here